


Built of Metal

by imaginesbyilana



Category: American Assassin (2017)
Genre: Also on Tumblr, Angst, Codependence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 16:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16201394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginesbyilana/pseuds/imaginesbyilana
Summary: A weaker person would not have lived through this. But I was not weak.





	Built of Metal

At five am, the sun was only just beginning to rise, shining into the room through the gap between the curtains. I lay naked in bed, only half covered by the sheets due to the hot weather, and listened to the breathing of the sleeping man I currently had my back turned to.

His arm was around my waist, preventing me from moving, and his face was pressed between my shoulder blades. It was too warm to cuddle, but in his sleep, Mitch didn’t care. For all his attitude during the day, he craved affection at night.

I was glad for the touch. I felt like if I wasn’t held down I would float away.

I hadn’t slept at all, so my head felt light, and sort of like it was filled with cotton. Besides that, my mind was running around in circles, bringing up the same worries and memories over and over again without giving me time to breathe.

There was a panicky sensation fluttering in my chest, that I kept repressing only for it to surface again the moment my thoughts returned to my main worry.

It was Saturday.

I pressed my eyes closed as my breath hitched and tried very hard to cage in that thought and push it to the back of my mind. As it had all night, it managed to slip between the bars and force itself to the front, screaming in my head as if someone were holding a megaphone.

_It’s Saturday!_

_It’s Saturday!_

_Bet you thought it never would be!_

I opened my eyes again.

The motel room bordered on claustrophobic. It was small, with only room for a bed, a dresser and a small CTR TV on top. There was a door that opened to a tiny bathroom with a shower and toilet, neither of which looked like they’d been cleaned in the recent past. I didn’t mind the filth. At least there _was_ a shower, which was a luxury all on its own these days.

Behind me, Mitch shifted and flopped onto his back, signaling that he was awake. I felt the panic in my chest flutter again, then solidify into a tight ball of nerves.

For a moment, I thought about pretending to be asleep, but Mitch would _know_ , and so I turned onto my other side to face him.

“Hey.”

Mitch hummed. “Morning.”

His eyes were still closed and he had an arm thrown over his face. His longish brown hair peaked in all directions and his lips were dry and cracked.

There was something vulnerable about Mitch first thing in the morning. His voice was all soft, his eyes only half-opened and the usual hard set to his jaw was non-existent. This was the Mitch Rapp I had fallen in love with, once upon a time back in college, before he started dating somebody else.

Before I became accustomed to the thought that I’d never be more than his friend.

_Sat-ur-day._

It was comically genius that even now, years later when his girlfriend was dead and he’d come to me seeking comfort, I still didn’t really have him. I _hated_ myself for resenting Katrina, but I couldn’t help it. He still belonged to her, even five years after her death. Even after everything Mitch and I had been through together.

Even with the ring around my finger weighing me down like an anvil in deep water.

I turned onto my back, then sat up and threw my legs over the side of the bed. I pulled my hair into a ponytail using one of the many hairbands I kept around my wrist and was ready to stand up when the bed creaked and I felt arms wrapping around my waist.

“Stay in bed a little longer,” Mitch said, and pressed his lips against the small of my back.

“I’d rather not,” I told him. My voice broke on the ‘not’, and I felt Mitch’s grip around me tighten even as he pulled his head away to speak.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Did you sleep at all?” Mitch asked.

I didn’t answer. I knew he’d see right through my lie. We’d known each other for too long and knew too much about each other.

Mitch began to pull at me until I let myself be guided back into bed. He turned me around to face him like I was a child being difficult, then put a hand on my cheek and brought our faces together for a slow kiss.

We hadn’t brushed out teeth yet, and we were both gross from last night’s dried up sweat, but I didn’t care. I was a sucker for kissing. It always managed to shut up my head and bring me back to earth. Mitch knew that, and he knew just how to coax me into it without making me feel trapped.

I responded, wrapping my arms around Mitch’s neck and sighing into his mouth when he pulled me onto his chest. Then, I had to pull back to hide a yawn against his neck.

Mitch pulled the hair band out of my hair and then brushed his hand through the strands as if he were untangling them. I let out a sigh, relaxing into the touch, and Mitch chuckled, then pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“You’re tired. You should try to get some sleep now.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want you to be gone when I wake up.”

_It’s Saturday!_

Mitch’s hand halted it’s petting for a second before continuing, a little slower than it had before. I could sense the gears in his head turning as he searched for an answer.

I already knew what he would say before he opened his mouth. We’d had this conversation before.

“Then tell me to stay.”

The rope connecting me to the anvil tightened around my neck, pulling me down even further. I felt myself tense up and shook my head slowly.

“We both know you wouldn’t listen.”

And it was true. He wouldn’t.

Mitch was a selfish person. He didn’t mean to be, but he was. He took and took and took and gave back so very little that it left me hollowed out, _this_ close to collapsing in on myself.

If I asked him to stay now, he might do so for a week, or two. Maybe even a month. Maybe even a _year_. But eventually, he’d leave again.

Because I’d never live up to _her_.

Mitch loved me, I knew he did, but he’d never love me the way he did Katrina’s memory.

And until he felt like he’d properly avenged her death, he’d never be able to let her go.

We both knew he’d never feel like she’d been avenged, though. No matter what he did, who he fought and what terrible things he stopped, it would _never_ be enough.

But we also both knew he had to keep trying, or he wouldn’t stay sane.

“I’m sorry,” Mitch said, pulling me closer to him. I realized suddenly that there were tears dripping down my cheeks, and I hated myself for crying.

This was so much harder when I was weak.

I didn’t want to be weak.

“Just tell me you’re coming back,” I whispered. “Please.”

“I’m coming back. (Y/n), I’ll always come back to you.”

And I believed him.

Just like he was all that I had, I was all that _he_ had. It was horrible and unhealthy and everything a younger me would have run away from, but it was what it was.

He was not the boy I’d fallen in love with, and I was not the girl he’d left in the dust.

We were two people who had nobody else, all tangled up in each other.

“Go to sleep, (Y/n/n)” Mitch whispered with a sigh, tightening his hold on me. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

_“I’ll be back soon, okay? Don’t cry. Don’t cry, please. I have to do this. You know I have to do this. I love you, baby. Just believe that I’ll be back.”_

His words from the very first time he’d left rang through my mind, back when I’d let myself believe that I was everything to him. The realization that I was not had shook me to the core, and my entire world had collapsed around me.

A weaker person would not have lived through that. They would have left their ring on the kitchen counter and never looked back.

But I was not weak. Even after six relocations and a thousand lonely nights, I would not _let_ myself be.

I stopped crying and closed my eyes.

After a while, Mitch turned on the TV and moved us slightly, sitting with his back against the headboard. I whined a little with the movement, but he shushed me with a kiss to my hair and a whispered “shhh, I’m not going anywhere yet. I’m still here.”

I was only half laying on him like this, but he kept his hand on my back, brushing against the bare skin. I drifted off to the sound of flipping channels, and the possibility of any sort of loneliness seemed miles away.

Whenever my mind tried to remind me that it was, in fact, only a few hours away, I would shift and Mitch would still his hand, whispering meaningless comforts until I drifted off again.

Finally, I really fell asleep.

When I woke up, Mitch was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr


End file.
